The Q Word
by Omnicat
Summary: Frigga does not approve of Loki's language and makes him apologize to Natasha for his Shakespearean insults.


**Title:** The Q Word

 **Author:** Omnicat

 **Unofficially Adapted From:** Kenneth Branagh  & co's _Thor_ and Joss Whedon  & co's _The Avengers_.

 **Spoilers & Desirable Foreknowledge:** All of the above, though nothing specific for _Thor_.

 **Warnings:** Language.

 **Characters & Pairings:** Frigga, Loki, Natasha, and others.

 **Summary:** Frigga does not approve of Loki's language and makes him apologize to Natasha for his Shakespearean insults.

 **Author's Note:** As usual, a heaping helping of crack for the kink meme. This is not canon compliant with anything past _The Avengers_ for the simple reason that I wrote this before anything else after _The Avengers_ came out and then forgot to crosspost it FOR THREE WHOLE YEARS because it didn't have a satisfying title yet. STORY OF MY LIFE.

Anyway, here, enjoy a little blast from the past!

 **II-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-I-oOo-I-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-II**

 **The Q Word**

"Mother, please," Loki complained, though rather indulgently.

"I'm just so glad to see you looking like yourself again," Frigga said, never removing her fingers from his hair.

"Keep that up and I'll look like a dishevelled cave man. Hardly better than a short-shorn prisoner, if you ask me."

"I'll put it to rights again, don't you worry. Let a mother play with her baby."

Loki tried (not very hard) to hide his smile and happy flush, and leaned into her touch. They walked in the gardens, cuddling and making small talk, until they retreated to Frigga's airy, sunlit sitting room for lunch, which Loki devoured like he hadn't had anything so scrumptuous in years (he hadn't). Then, though, Frigga got out the ink and parchment. Time to get back to business.

Loki groaned, sagging further into the couch – the first cushioned chair he had sat in in years! – and looked as pitiful as he could. And with eyes like his, that was pitiful indeed.

"Don't be like that, darling. Just this one last, small thing and we can leave all of this behind us for good."

"Did I voice a protest? I've said nothing. I'm all yours. Strike me your fiercest blow." He sat up straight, clasped his hands in front of him, and looked eager.

Frigga patted his cheek.

"The warriors you faced off against, the 'avengers'. What were their names?"

Loki listed them.

"And for what do you owe each of them weregild?"

Because Loki was a prince of Asgard, the bulk of the blood money owed to the people of Midgard had, naturally, come out of the royal treasury. To not discourage him taking personal responsibility for his actions _too_ much, however, it had been agreed that he would pay the weregild for the warriors he had antagonized on a personal level from his own vault.

Loki estimated that it would cost him all of the loot from his last dragon's lair and most of the reward for tracking down that elvish pirate ring not long before Thor's failed coronation. He could live with that. He just wished that he wouldn't have to recount his every offense to determine the exact amount. Out loud. To his _mother_. The part of him that was ashamed of his actions had grown alarmingly during the years he had spent 'banished' to the dungeons (as opposed to thrown out of the Realm Eternal entirely, because look how well that turned out the last time) as punishment for his actions in Asgard.

"I threw Stark from a tower," Loki said eventually.

Frigga didn't even blink.

"But in my defense, he had insulted my virility," he added nonetheless.

"Was he hurt very badly?" Frigga asked.

"Not at all. He had a suit of armour with the power of flight."

"That should lower the blood price."

"He is one of the wealthiest men of his realm, but he seemed to like his drink. I propose that Stark's weregild be paid in poetry mead," Loki suggested helpfully. Frigga raised an eyebrow. "He has the tolerance for it, mother, I assure you. Ask Thor if you don't believe me."

Frigga smiled into her notes. "I believe you. What else?"

"I enslaved Barton's mind and turned him against his comrades. In return he shot an explosive arrow at my face."

"Did it hit you?"

"Yes. In mid-air."

Frigga frowned up at him. "Very high up?"

"The blast flung me into a tower, so I did not fall far. But yes, very high up," he said, looking pitiful again.

She scribbled with one hand and resumed petting his hair with the other. "What else?"

"Romanoff... I suppose it's my fault the green giant gave chase to her." He tried to sound appropriately apologetic, he really did. But the memory of how she had fooled him was one of the few that hadn't lost their bitter edge in the course of time. "The mewling quim," he muttered under his breath –

– and regretted it immediately, as Frigga's head shot up, shock written across her face, and she exclaimed "Loki! What did you just call her?"

"I really don't think she knew what it meant –" he started...

...well, damn.

"You called her that _to her face?!_ "

"I also caused the angry giant to almost squash her like a bug," Loki said, trying to redirect the conversation to the much safer subject of his actual acts of villainy.

"Perhaps your father cares what use or abuse you put his lessons of battle and strategy to, but I do not. I am the one who taught you your _manners_ ," Frigga said hotly, setting aside her parchment and standing. Loki had to stifle the urge to shrink back like a little boy. "And I taught you better than to use such language. To a maiden, no less!"

The insultingly snort of 'maiden, ha!' did not pass his lips this time. "I'm sorry," Loki said instead.

"You had better be. I should wash your mouth out with soap, young man!"

Loki's eyes went wide as saucers. "You wouldn't."

"No, I won't." The anger left her face, leaving only disappointment, and Loki relaxed a bit – when she added, "Punishment is a man's way. _I_ will make you apologise."

And swift as a snake, she grabbed his ear, yanked him up from the couch and –

– world-walked –

– straight –

– down –

– to Midgard, only relinquishing her bruising hold on his ear when they found themselves in a room filled with machines and mortals.

Cupping his abused ear and cursing the day he had decided to show some goodwill and divulge the secret of the hidden pathways, Loki stared out across a vaguely familiar control center. Every single occupant of the room stared back.

The weapons came out moments after.

"Who are you? Identify yourselves," a female voice snapped.

Frigga and Loki turned to face the speaker; a woman just as familiar-but-unfamiliar to him as the room they were in. The silver of her tidy knot and her deeply lined face did not suggest a warrior, but everything from her sharp blue eyes, straight posture and crisp uniform, spoke of authority and battle-honed instincts.

"I am Frigga Fjorgynsdottir, Queen of Asgard, and this is my son, Prince Loki," Frigga said. "We have come to make reparations with one of your people."

"Asgard?" The blue-eyed woman took in the sight of the Asgardians, hid a smile a fraction of a second too late at the sight of Loki sullenly rubbing his ear, and stepped toward them with a hand outstretched. "That's been a while. Welcome to Earth. And welcome to SHIELD."

The women shook hands, regal and beautiful, one in sharply-cut navy blue, the other in jewel-studded gold. The other SHIELD agents hesitantly lowered their weapons, shooting each other confused glances and whispering like school children. None of them seemed familiar to Loki, and they didn't seem to really recognize him either.

"Reparations, you said?" the SHIELD commander repeated.

"Yes," Frigga confirmed. "To the Lady Natasha Romanoff, warrior maiden of SHIELD. We would be much obliged if you could show us to her."

The amusement stayed firmly in place on the mortal woman's face this time. "Sure can do." She turned to a young man behind a station to her right. "You, pull up Natasha Romanoff's current residence."

"Director...?" he said uncertainly.

"Romanoff with double eff," she said, unperturbed. "Data on a hand-held, please."

Moments later, she showed Frigga the address on a holographic disc, and after exchanging the appropriate pleasantries, Frigga grabbed Loki again – by the arm this time, thank the Norns –

– and they world-walked into a shock of green and flowers ringing a quaint-looking cottage.

Frigga knocked on the door.

Loki leaned around her and pressed the doorbell.

They waited several moments. Eventually, the door was opened by a little old lady.

"Hello," Frigga said with a pleasant smile and a vice grip on Loki's arm. "We're looking for Natasha Romanoff, warrior maiden of SHIELD."

The crone looked from one to the other with narrowed eyes and pursed lips.

Loki's mouth fell open in realisation moments before...

"I'm former SHIELD agent Natasha Romanoff," the old woman said.

Frigga's jaw dropped as well.

"This is _not_ my fault," Loki hissed into his mother's ear. "I was in _jail_ , the last thing I felt like doing was keep track of how slowly time crept by."

"Of course it's not your fault, darling," Frigga whispered, looking between Loki and Romanoff in shock. "But the rest of us have been very... very foolish."

" _You_ 're Loki," Romanoff said, pinning him with eyes that, for all her laboured squinting, had lost nothing of their shrewdness. She casually drew a long, sharp pin from the thick twist of her white hair and tapped it to her hip, pretending it was nothing – most especially not something you could stab a person with. "Never thought I'd see your face again."

"Likewise," Loki said, pretending along.

She nodded towards Frigga. "Who's this?"

"Queen Frigga of Asgard. My mother."

"Ah." Romanoff squinted a bit harder. "Nice to meet you."

"Likewise," Frigga echoed, her composure restored, but apparently not her eloquence.

"So what brings you here?"

Despite everything, Frigga looked expectantly at Loki.

"I came to apologize for my language when last we met," Loki said, doing his best to ignore the surreality of the situation. "I called you a very rude word, which was... rude."

Romanoff cocked her head, her expression pensive, and then perked up and pointed her hairpin. "Oh, I remember! I had to look up what you'd said in a dictionary, you know, it was so antiquated."

"Didn't I tell you?" Loki said to Frigga. "If I'd _really_ wanted to insult her, I would have used a more modern word. 'Cunt' or some such."

"That word hasn't been modern in decades either," Romanoff said, at the same time as Frigga snapped, "Loki! I brought you here so you could apologize, not make more excuses."

Romanoff's eyebrows rose. "Your _mother dragged you here_ to apologize? Really, Loki? _Really?_ "

Loki scowled. Romanoff cackled.

"That is what mothers do," Frigga said with serene dignity. "They raise their children as best they can, and when they are led astray, they try to bring them back to the right path. No matter how old they get."

"Oh, I've done the same to mine plenty of times," Romanoff croaked, wiping tears of laughter from her eyes. "It's just so damn satisfying to see it happen to _him_. I can die in peace now. Hell, I can die in glee! My kids are going to love this. They already think I'm going senile anyway."

Loki glowered for a moment more before he sighed and murmured, "I suppose I deserve that."

"Yes you do, you son of a –" Romanoff's eyes shot to Frigga. "Nevermind."

There was an awkward silence.

"Is there anything else you wanted?" Romanoff asked eventually.

"I apologize for the entire invasion?" he offered. "You know, since I'm here anyway."

Romanoff snorted.

Loki eyed her. "You're married?"

"Was. He went before me. Why?"

"What happened to 'love is for children'?"

"Is that something I said? It's been so long, I can't remember." Romanoff frowned, then shrugged. "It's true, though."

"Yes, it is," Frigga said, patting Loki's hand. "Your love is for your children first and foremost. Even when they misbehave."

And he supposed it was.

 **II-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-I-oOo-I-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-II**

(Yeah, that's totally Maria Hill up there.)


End file.
